I'll Try Anything!

Description

I never want to see another barrel of salted fish as long as I live! Filling barrels day in and day out, and there are still more to be filled!

I wish I hadn't used up all that bait I bought from Nat Pagle. Worked like magic, it did. Now I'm lucky if I can catch a fish an hour!

I hear the northern barbfish make pretty good bait, but who's crazy enough to dive into a freezing cold lake and hack up the water plants in search of them? Not me... but maybe, just maybe, I can persuade you to...

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Comments

Comment by NobodyYouKnow

Just in case you didn't *quite* get the quest, try jumping into the lake he is fishing in. You should see some "water plants". They will sparkle the same way a chest or other quest objective does.

Interacting with the water plants will cause a Forsaken Spy, a Caldemere Snapper, or a Northern Barbfish to spawn. What you want to spawn is the northern barbfish. It seems there is a 33.33~% chance for either of the three to spawn. Luckily there is a 100% drop rate - if a northern barbfish spawns, after you kill it and loot it it you have 100% chance at getting a northern barbfish in your bag.

Comment by thelaks

Comment by Tipme

Comment by Kurimu

By my estimations, there was 1 Barbfish for every 3-5 plants, so it's right along the 33% chance here.

However, factor in the swim time and need for breathing and you have yourself a pretty long quest. If you're trying to speed-quest, this is one to skip.

Comment by Azbulldog

I must have just killed about 30 crabs and Forsaken spies put together until the first fish spawned from the water plant. Enjoy your grind.

Comment by hungryjonny

Completed in about 10min, without using any kind of pots or buffs. Being melee, you can just swim backwards toward the next plant while killing whichever mob spawned. Longest I went without a fish spawning was 4 plants (2 crabs, 1 forsaken, then the fish).

Comment by Chanticrow

After the third barbfish I noticed that they were appearing from plants right next to rocks. I started only beating plants next to rocks, and had only two additional spawns other than barbfish. These were times that there were two plants next to the rocks, and it was always on the second plant that I got a non-barbfish.

This seems kind of crazy though. Maybe I just got lucky on the rolls.

Someone want to give this a try and confirm or refute this?

Comment by Spasticon

The drop rate on this quest is really irritating, mostly because it has to be done entirely underwater where movement is very slow.

By the time I finished I had killed:

7 Northern Barbfish5 Forsaken Spy20 Caldemerre Snapper

Comment by BruceVashj

Now that was a aweful quest, too low droprate, and if it's crowded, don't even considering doing it ! If empty lake, then maybe, if you have the stamina for it

Comment by Mokker

took 8 minutes no one around though...

Comment by shockwaver

Simple way of doing it as a mage. Blink out at the moment you finish attacking the plant. If there is crab or spy, ignore it. If there is a fish you are at the right spot to attack it. Didn't take more than 5 minutes this way.

Comment by Kleb

Very frustrating quest, not worth the time or effort imo.

Comment by Sarthos

Wow they really need to check their lake if there is spies lol.

Comment by wlb004

As a hunter I dismissed my pet and dropped a freezing trap. If the plant didn't drop a fish I moved off to another plant and feigned. Rinse and repeat to get the fish within a reasonable time.

It took me only 10-15 min to finish with no unnecessary fights. I can't confirm any different drop rate based on locations of the plants. It was about 50% crabs 25% fish and 25% forsaken.

Comment by Alastroth

I am currently doing this quest and I have to say that my rate of getting a fish to appear is absolutely terrible. I have gotten one fish per 10-12 plants. That means that I'll have to search between 70-84 plants to find 7 darn fish. I don't think this quest is worth doing at all.

Comment by bbeckley

Poor drop rates, i would suggest skipping the quest if your trying to level fast, and come back later when you have time, or want to work on the acomplishment for the fjord

Comment by BingoDinkus

As pretty much has pointed out, the spawn rate of fish is absolutely horrible. After like 20 minutes, I had pretty much ready to drop the quest. If you're going to do this quest, my only recommendation is to stick with the plants near the quest giver as much as possible. If you don't get a fish, run ashore and let the guards kill the mob, loop right back around and start hitting another plant, while the guards take care of the trash.

Comment by mrdummy

Here it goes well, enough fish spawned. Low chance of spy (funny to find a spy in plants) or crab.

Comment by Farrar

Great quest thanks to tip from Chanticrow, this and the next quest took less than 10 mins all in (second nagrand cherry hadn't run out), great XP nice and fast, just pick off the plants by the rocks.

Comment by Xarlequin

The fish are random, it dosn't matter if the plants are close to the rocks or not. I had luck while I did this quest and finnished pretty quickly.Sure, it can be a really mean quest, but you get exp from killing the mobs if your unlucky - and exp is what matters so dont go feeling sad if your not getting luck with the fish.

Comment by MackStaples

There is an interesting issue with the NPCs spawned in this quest: they can all drown. Yes, drown.

This may not be the most useful information, but it's funny to just root the spawns, move on to more plants, and go back in a minute once the NPC has drowned. The corpses are lootable if they die in this manner.

Comment by Staticforce

This quest seems to be part of the prerequisites for March of the Giants and The Book of Runes.

I skipped it initially because the spawn rate was frustrating, and neither of the questgivers had those quests. I completed this quest, lo and behold, I could get both the quests.

Comment by dkrog

need to take 50 Water Plants to get all 7!

Comment by Lunitara

I got fourteen Forsaken Spies, eleven Caldemere Snappers and (of course) seven Nothern Barbfish. The drop rate sucks (especially seeing as eight of those spies and five snappers showed up before I got my hands on even ONE barbfish), but it's a pretty easy quest. There doesn't seem to be anything freely lurking in the water, other then what you summon from the water plants, so it's a pretty safe quest.

Also, quick note-- If you're doing the Down to the Wire quest, I found that the best place to find these feathers is just north of the lake, along the shore line. I finished this quest as I finished the barbed fish one.

Comment by Mysticoracle

I had done this quest as pretty much everyone else had, getting terrible drop rates. I went to do it on my second character and read through the posts here first. The one from Chanticrow about getting better drop rates from plants right by rocks seems to be dead on. I went from 15% drop rate last time to 7 of 9 plants being Northern Barbfish. And those 2 were Spys and from second plants by a rock. It may have just been luck with the RNG, but it seems a few people have had similar results. If more people could try this and post it would help clarify the theory.

Comment by ysalimiri

2 hours after staring this quest and several full circuits of the lake killing ridiculous amouts of mobs, i still have not got 1 barbfish to drop, the quest has been abandoned and accepted 3 times, its either bugged or i'm the unluckiest person playing this game

Comment by lottimer

I noticed alot of comments say percents, that they spawn better here than, and lastly skip the quest. I have now done this quest on 7 chars. The first 2 times I got them 9 plants and 11. Every time since then it has take at least 40 and I have gone 100+ once also. I have taken notes on each plant I did and have not seen any difference in percentage by where the plants were located. I'd say the drop rates are : Caldemere Snapper 60%, Forsaken Spy 25%, and Northern Barbfish 15%. All in all, this quest sucks, but I disagree with skipping it. If you do not complete this quest you fail to get its follow up, The One That Got Away. This will cost you the xp of two quest which you'll have to make up later.

Comment by johnpatrik

Cristopher Sloan... The book Eragon was written buy a dude named Cristopher and in the book there is a charcter named Sloan...

Comment by MarsJenkar

From what I'm reading here, the chance of a Forsaken Spy is either higher than or equal to the chance of getting a Northern Barbfish. If you ask me, that ain't right. Forsaken Spy should be an occasional surprise, because after the second one it's lost any novelty it had, and stretches my suspension of disbelief to the limit. Alliance counterintelligence can't be *that* bad.

Comment by Carnagefiend

If you do not complete this quest; 3 questlines, starting with March of the Giants, The Book of Runes, and The Enigmatic Frost Nymphs, will not become available.

This is absolutely incorrect. Down to the Wire activates these quests, not this fishing one.

Skip it.

EDIT: Why is this voted down? Because I suggested you skip it and save yourself the trouble of this quest and its follow-up? This quest does not activate the series of quests lottimer claims it does, yet I get voted down?

Comment by Obolon

The spawn rate for fish was great for me. 7 fish, 2 crabs, 2 divers.

Comment by tweekerD

i believe they changed this quest in the last patch, upping the drop rate, and lowering the number required (from 8 i think, down to 5), very nice!

Comment by Hwang

Looks like they probably did up the drop rate, previous two toons took forever to do this quest. I just did it and got all 5 fish in 5 picks, which is probably lucky, but indicative of an increased drop rate. In fact, it almost took me longer to type this than the quest itself took.

Comment by jewhaen

Took me 8 plants to finish the quest. No question about it: upped the drop rate.

Worth doing? Absolutely. This chain was completed in less than 10 minutes and it gave over 30k exp.

Comment by Tenjen

reference to Nat's quest with the sharks and bait

Comment by ziggy29

In my first 11 tries, I got one quest item and almost abandoned it -- in fact, the reports of the putrid drop rate here very nearly convinced me. Just a couple more tries, I thought -- and I got the last four in only six more tries. Go figure.

Comment by Coolmama

with the 5 fish I only had 3 snappers and 2 spies, so it was smooth & easy :)

Comment by Slan1011

On the plus side this quest actually works, there's no mysterious items to use with no directions on how or why to do that. On the downside it was one of the dullest quests I've ever wasted almost an hour on. You have to get into about 40 or 50 melee's to get the required number of barbfish.

Comment by Riegal

This quest is bugged as of this date (or at least was for me). You try to loot the fish and are unable to but it has been reported so hopefully a fix is on the way.

Comment by SonicSez

so i hit this quest today, first plant gave me a fish then the next 8 gave me random mobs, then after reading thru these comments gave it a good ol' /reload and the next 4 were fish, idk just throwin it out there

Comment by ohgrfreak

My issue isn't with the droprate of mobs, it's that the PLANTS DON"T GROW BACK. I have all but one quest item, and now I'm swimming around for a half hour waiting for more plants. Zip Zilch None.